Diet Study Isses

Nothing personal about it. So I think I already have the answer.

I just want to be very clear and state that my gliders eat a very modestly researched diet.

If I can remember (and they are not de-icing planes in Dallas which will prevent me from coming), I will bring the Australian marsupial books and anyone can look at the diet stuff who wants to. They are so darn expensive that I'd love for them to get more use than just mine.

There is lots of info about what they eat in the wild, based on observation over time in the field and also based on analysis of glider stomach contents at various times of the year.

Boy you are right about them being costly! They are worth it though to me... Thanks you Dee for referring me to them many moons ago! LOL

Maybe the community could go in together and buy a few.... then keep a waiting list... Library O'Suggie

Quote :

I just want to be very clear and state that my gliders eat a very modestly researched diet.

I don't have a problem with that. So do mine. I do have a problem with the many diets that are out there that were formulated on a whim, and touted to be the best when there is little or no evidence to support that claim.

BabyLoveGliders wrote:

Boy you are right about them being costly! They are worth it though to me... Thanks you Dee for referring me to them many moons ago! LOL

Maybe the community could go in together and buy a few.... then keep a waiting list... Library O'Suggie

Or Kris, maybe you could just share with us what the book says. Not a word for word because that would be copywrite infringement, but a summary giving credit to the author would be very nice. Maybe we could all learn something.

Quote :

I do have a problem with the many diets that are out there that were formulated on a whim, and touted to be the best when there is little or no evidence to support that claim.

I could be very wrong, but I dont remember anyone saying any diet is the best.

Ok, my bad. Perhaps the word "better" would have been a more accetpable choice. But I have recently seen a diet creator step into posts to critique diets created by others. That action sure seems to indicate that this particular diet creator thinks that their way is the best. Dunno, I could be wrong.

Kris, maybe you could just share with us what the book says. Not a word for word because that would be copy write infringement, but a summary giving credit to the author would be very nice. Maybe we could all learn something.

Dee has them as well Anita. Maybe if she has the time she will share the info with you. She is the one that shared it with me.. again.. things coming from the actual source are of course better than from me. :)

Ok, so you are reluctant to share that information also. Hmmm. Interesting.

Ok, I’ve taken this too far off from the original post. We can see from what’s been posted here that those we sometimes think are experts may not know any more than the rest of us. And too often we see diets created that conform to a person’s personal belief rather than solid research.

For instance, sometimes those who are vegetarians are reluctant to feed meat, and those who feel that natural is better will try to feed gliders a natural diet with out taking into consideration that what it natural for us isn’t natural for them and vise versa.

And we’ve also seen the results of a poorly put together calcium study. It was a lot of talk and posturing with no real beneficial outcome. Thank goodness that most of those involved realized that this was not a well thought out plan before they put their gliders through the trauma of a blood draw.

So yes, a good and methodic diet study might give us answers. We can hope can’t we? So I encourage TGI to continue and I hope you are successful.

I have a suggestion and it is only a suggestion. Why not start by getting a clearer understanding of what gliders eat in the wild. By that I mean maybe have someone do a nutritional break down of the gums, saps and other things that are part of their native diet. It might not give us the ultimate answers that we are seeking but it would be a lot less intrusive and it might be agood place to start.

edited to change the word diet to calcium....and because of fat fingers.

Anita, blood draws are not traumatic at my vet cause i pay the 60 dollars for a little sedation. No problem, no trauma!
I don't know anything about diets but I know about blood draws. Back to your reg. scheduled program. :)

Anita may I ask why any information that is readily available for your viewing must come from me? I would think since you seem to be so interested that you would be willing to do it yourself. Why trust me to provide an accurate synopsis ? These are public places and published readings after all.

Anita, maybe instead of sitting back and making numerous assumptions about people and their diets you should actually do some reading, chatting and research yourself.

Instead of this

Quote :

I have a suggestion and it is only a suggestion. Why not start by getting a clearer understanding of what gliders eat in the wild. By that I mean maybe have someone do a nutritional break down of the gums, saps and other things that are part of their native diet. It might not give us the ultimate answers that we are seeking but it would be a lot less intrusive and a might be agood place to start.

After all you seem very interested in this subject.

Cora wrote:

Anita, blood draws are not traumatic at my vet cause i pay the 60 dollars for a little sedation...................no problem, no trauma!

While a blood draw itself may not be traumatic, there are risks to the anesthesia. These effects escalate when a glider must undergo anesthesia multiple times. I have had some gliders who had issues with the anesthesia. It's something that I note in there vet records and relay at time of adoption. I try to avoid anesthetizing gliders unless necessary. Then, I have anything necessary done, whether it's a blood draw or an xray. Val wrote an excellent article about this issue.

anesthesia...things to consider

Ladies, please keep this post on topic. While healthy debates are encouraged here, this is rapidly degrading and getting nowhere.

RE: Diet Study

Quote :

And we’ve also seen the results of a poorly put together diet study. It was a lot of talk and posturing with no real beneficial outcome. Thank goodness that most of those involved realized that this was not a well thought out plan before they put their gliders through the trauma of a blood draw.

It was not a diet study Anita as you very well know. It was going to be a small group of people getting their gliders blood drawn to check for calcium, that's it.

Yes, like I already posted. For one reason or another people did need to drop out. Which is completely fine with me. I no longer have the wish or the will to contiune. I have had a life changing event occur that has pressed me to adjust my priorities. Defending nor myself or my diet to anyone that really does not care, like yourself, is not one of them.

My diet speaks for itself. The proof is in the pudding if you will. If anyone is truly interested in the diet and not me. Please contact me.

thefotokat wrote:

Cora wrote:

Anita, blood draws are not traumatic at my vet cause i pay the 60 dollars for a little sedation...................no problem, no trauma!

While a blood draw itself may not be traumatic, there are risks to the anesthesia. These effects escalate when a glider must undergo anesthesia multiple times. I have had some gliders who had issues with the anesthesia. It's something that I note in there vet records and relay at time of adoption. I try to avoid anesthetizing gliders unless necessary. Then, I have anything necessary done, whether it's a blood draw or an xray. Val wrote an excellent article about this issue.

anesthesia...things to consider

I agree completely Kate. I and several others are very lucky to have great vets that do not need to use anesthesia for simple blood draws.

USMom wrote:

Ladies, please keep this post on topic. While healthy debates are encouraged here, this is rapidly degrading and getting nowhere.

You are right and thank you Shawna for editing my post as that was not necessary.

Well dang, I thought I brought this full circle and back to the OP before I left to get groceries. But I guess I didn’t.

Ok, I did change the word diet to calcium in my former post. That was my mistake. Not that it makes that much difference.

Kris, I have already answered your question about my interest. I’m not sure what part you don’t understand. Although I don’t like repeating myself, I will…again. I am asking YOU specifically about YOUR research and YOUR diet. The research that you talked about when you said this:

Quote :

I started researching, researching and more researching, changing, trying and adding. In March of 2009, I was done.. both my vet and I are confidant and thrilled in what I've created and best of all my gliders are!

Cora wrote:

Anita, blood draws are not traumatic at my vet cause i pay the 60 dollars for a little sedation. No problem, no trauma!
I don't know anything about diets but I know about blood draws. Back to your reg. scheduled program. :)

Cora- what do they look for in that blood draw? Is it a full draw for testing across the board or just testing for certain things? I'm asking so I have reference if I should make the drive over to your vet for bloodwork.

We have removed some posts because we felt, as a team, that they contributed no new information to the thread, nor did they bring up any new questions or concerns for debate.
We love that you have found The Sweet Spot to be a safe place for healthy debate, but wish to remind all of our members that a HEALTHY debate does not include accusations, insults or condescending remarks. Some very good questions have been raised in this thread, and we would love to see the thread continue, the questions commented upon, and our members continue to share your experiences and opinions. The Sweet Spot is a board for SHARING of INFORMATION. It is not our expectation that every single post or thread be about sharing information, but in THIS thread, information sharing would be key. Please refrain from posting any more on this matter unless your response will add new information, enhance our learning experience and/or improve the health or information knowledge base of other glider owners.

Nancy, there are normal blood values for gliders in the vet Merck. I don't know where I read it, but I think they are not exactly the same as those published somewhere else and vets use both. Chris Reihner would be a good person to ask about this.

First I would like to apologize for my part in the controversy. The last post that I made (the one that got removed), came from my frustration and it was beneath me to say those things. I need to keep that in check and do what is right for these beautiful animals, instead of what makes me feel good. I’m thankful to the SS staff for pulling things back and getting things under control before I sank any deeper.

We are a group that is evolving. Ten years ago when I first got into gliders many rescuers not only rescued, they were also breeders. And it was not uncommon for rescues to be bred. As times changed, we saw the need to try to change those practices. We are now starting to ask for standards of excellence and legitimacy in rescues.

Shouldn’t we be starting to ask for some of those same standards of excellence in published diets? Or is it enough to publish a list of ingredients and a little hype like my gliders love it and my vet agrees?

And yes, I realize that most research includes the research that came from others. There is no need to redo it if it was done before and it is accurate. But something caused the new researcher to tweak the ingredients. Something caused the new researcher to feel like their new diet was better than the original. What? Is it wrong to ask how they arrived at their conclusion and to back up what they say? I believe we still have a lot to learn and some of these diets will prove out to be excellent; and others won’t.

And just like other areas, we are still evolving in the area of diet. It wasn’t long ago that there was only one diet and anyone who disagreed was placed on the chopping block. Then someone came along and said “Look, I’ve been feeding HPW. Look at the before and after pictures!” And someone else stood up and said “Hey, I’ve been using PP’s diet and my gliders are thriving” and the ice was broken and many diets became acceptable.

Having a lot of diet choices or choosing not to follow any diet is a good thing. It’s called freedom. But I wonder if because of our previous chopping block experience, we’ve lost some of our objectivity; particularly with the diets that are published for others to follow. Have we gone overboard to the point that diet creators are above reproach?

We need to be able to ask questions and expect answers. It shouldn’t be considered a threat to ask to see some research. Are there any notes or maybe a journal? Are there before and after pictures? When your vet approved, did he/she work hand in hand with you or did he/she just look it over and say “looks good”? Did your vet put an approval in writing? Did you keep any kind of medical records that support your findings? Are blue berries better than strawberries? Why? Are gliders really fat intolerant? Are you sure? Why are nuts bad for gliders? Is there any type of nuts available in their natural diets? Where did feeding the grains like corn, oats and baby cereals come from? And what does that do to their systems which wasn’t designed to metabolize these foods? I could go on and on.

I think it is time to start asking questions, and we need to do it without malice. And we should start expecting research to be done the right way, with excellence and legitimacy. So again I would like to say that in my opinion, more real uncompromised research needs to be done in this area.

jungleflockmom wrote:

Nancy, there are normal blood values for gliders in the vet Merck. I don't know where I read it, but I think they are not exactly the same as those published somewhere else and vets use both. Chris Reihner would be a good person to ask about this.

Ask me what exactly? Guess I am not getting the question?




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anita, awesome post!!!!

Chris, Nancy asked Cora about blood tests for gliders. I'm just saying that if someone wants to know the blood values they should be looking for, you would probably be a good person to ask as you could ask Laurie what she uses.

Anita, I think you read Lisa's suncoast newsletter on diet? Is that right? If not, your questions are similar to mine when I read her diet recommendations and especially her what not to feed section.

I think I know the answer to one of your questions - the baby cereal one. I think the diets here have used baby cereal as it was in the Australian diet - high protein baby cereal and I think that the Gerber or Beechnut hi pro baby cereal flakes were available when gliders first came here. I looked at it when my 35 yr old was a baby and opted for regular human oatmeal instead. It wasn't really all that high in protein and very processed. But, because it was in the Australian zoo diet, it moseyed on over to the US. You probably already knew that.

An interesting thing about wild diets is the talk about gliders eating figs. The figs that they eat are the fruit of trees from the ficus family. You probably have them in FL growing in yards and on the street. I know we do here. The birds and gliders love them as they also love our typical summer figs. New Guinea, Indonesia, etc has these trees and fruits wild for bats and gliders.

I'm glad gliders are omnivores and so adaptable. That's why they are breeding so successfully here - they can really adapt.

[quote="
Anita, I think you read Lisa's suncoast newsletter on diet? Is that right? If not, your questions are similar to mine when I read her diet recommendations and especially her what not to feed section.

No, I sure didn't read read it but it is good to know that others have the same thoughts.

I think I know the answer to one of your questions - the baby cereal one. I think the diets here have used baby cereal as it was in the Australian diet - high protein baby cereal and I think that the Gerber or Beechnut hi pro baby cereal flakes were available when gliders first came here. I looked at it when my 35 yr old was a baby and opted for regular human oatmeal instead. It wasn't really all that high in protein and very processed. But, because it was in the Australian zoo diet, it moseyed on over to the US. You probably already knew that.

Yes, I do know that baby cereal was part of the original leadbeaters diet that came from Australia. But I wonder why? I just wander what caused them to think that grains of any kind should be included. It just doesn't make since unless there was some kind of grain in the natural diet, and we are talking about the land that gliders are native too where native foods are abundant. Maybe the cereal was easier to get? Or maybe they found that grains added some nutritional value? Or maybe some of the bug that gliders eat have grains in the stomach? I just never could figure this one out.

An interesting thing about wild diets is the talk about gliders eating figs. The figs that they eat are the fruit of trees from the ficus family. You probably have them in FL growing in yards and on the street. I know we do here. The birds and gliders love them as they also love our typical summer figs. New Guinea, Indonesia, etc has these trees and fruits wild for bats and gliders.

I've been thinking about putting in a few figs for years, but so far thinking about it is all that I've done. Do you know if there is any particular type of figs that gliders prefer?


I'm glad gliders are omnivores and so adaptable. That's why they are breeding so successfully here - they can really adapt.[/quote]

I know that when I offered figs to my gliders, the only cage that even touched them were the squirrel gliders...

Maybe I will try it again if I can find them at the stores around here.